Best of Michigan, USA: Mackinac Island, Pictured Rocks, Sleeping Bear Dunes, Detroit, Traverse City & the Upper Peninsula - A 2026 First-Person Guide
Browse more guides: United States travel | Americas destinations Best of Michigan, USA: Mackinac Island, Pictured Rocks, Sleeping Bear Dunes, Detroit, Traverse City & the Upper Peninsula - A 2026 First-Person Guide TL;DR I went into Michigan thinking I knew what I would find: Detroit, a Great Lake or two, maybe a long bridge somewhere. I walked out of Michigan three weeks later with sand in my shoes from a 450 foot freshwater dune, my hands sticky from a slab of fresh Mackinac fudge, my notebook full of GPS coordinates from sandstone cliffs that look as if a painter dipped them in copper and iron, and a quiet new respect for a state that touches four of the five Great Lakes. Michigan is two peninsulas joined by a 5 mile suspension bridge over the Straits of Mackinac, a Three Fires homeland of Odawa, Ojibwe and Potawatomi peoples, a French fur post turned automotive capital, and a place where you can sip a Riesling on a wine peninsula in the morning and watch a 200 foot wide wa...